I was thinking about inventing a plasma jet pack by using the anatomy of this plasma rocket that uses strong magnetic fields and using light gases that trigger the propulsion and the plasma has a very high temperature almost similar to that of our sun. But, then I realized that scientists say that it may only work in space which is overwhelmingly dissapointing , because my invention was going to be designed to save gas and the fuel would last longer while you're in the air for flying time fun. And I'm not sure if it will work in this atmosphere.Does anyone know about the plasma rocket engine? Is it possibe that the propulsion if this rocket would work in this kind of atmosphere-so it could be used as a "jet pack"?

Depends. How dense is your power source? If it has enough thrust to overcome weight, and has a chamber pressure good enough to force it's way out against the atmospheric pressure, then yes, but it would consume lot's of power, so you'd get at most a few seconds of flight.

The plasma engine is an answer to extremely long duration space flight. Instead of a huge blast of energy in a short time (minutes!) it uses a very small amount of energy for extremely long periods of time (years?).

You need a hhigh energy rocket to overcome gravity and friction, in order to get into space; basically escape velocity is 16.500 miles per hour... In space you do not have either, so you can use low energy long-duration engines to go very long distances; if you took a huge breath and let it out for a year or 2 you would eventually go fast enough to excape the galaxy... If they could

In looking for the amount of force of the current plasma engines, I found this at:

*************"the entire ion propulsion in DS1 can produce 92 mN of force which is "roughly" equivalent to the pulling power of a large beetle, like a cockroach, and DS1 weighs 489.5 kg. This is much less than 1 lbf/lb!

The reason why ion engines work in space is because of two reasons: there is no friction in the vacuum of space to cause resistance and being far from planets limits the influence of gravity. Because there is no friction then the small continuous pushes over long times will eventually speed up the ship. Gravity, which does exist in space, doesn't work to slow or stop the ship in the way it would on Earth."

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I did find an article on Wikipedia that gave the thrust of solid rocket motor as 10,000 to 10,000,000 Newtons, and the VASIMR as 10 -1,400 Newtons...

I think it is possible in reality, but somewhat engineeringly impossible due to high cost of providing energy to generate magnetic field, RF and cost of additional fuel since permanent magnet is quite weighty. Anyway, the idea is awesome and further researches may be required in alleviating the costs

I do not think that the plasma engine works in space. Plasma weighs here in the atmosphere, but in the universe there is no weight. I believe that the strength of the VASIMR is obtained by a weight and do not think that weight beyond work outside of the planet.

If that was the case, chemical rocket engine would not work in space either.

If you were to tweek the design a bit you could get the rocket to move large amounts of air, instead of plasma.... That would allow you to create your jet-pack. Use electricity to move air...

that's called an arc-jet and is a type of electric propulsion.

er, "air" in the sense that the fuel is heated up with electricity rather than ionized and accelerated with fields/RF.. if you're just talking about something that uses electricity to accelerate air in the atmosphere, then you're talking about an electric jet engine, which is silly.

er, "air" in the sense that the fuel is heated up with electricity rather than ionized and accelerated with fields/RF.. if you're just talking about something that uses electricity to accelerate air in the atmosphere, then you're talking about an electric jet engine, which is silly.

Not a electric jet - no fuel - more an electric ducted fan - which is used on many flying models.

Rockets are neccessary in space because generally, there's nothing to push off of in a Vaccuum. Now, there's not a total vaccuum that we know of, anywhere, but in our neighborhood, there's grams per cubic kilometer, which isn't much of what we call Reaction Mass. So, we have to take our own with us, for something to push off with. The faster you push it out behind you, the faster you go in the other direction, but the rub is, you have to carry this mass, and the mass to accellerate it, and the mass to accellerate that, not to mention tanks, or something to store it in. This is one of those re-iterative equations which makes Rocket Science notoriously complicated.

There are ways around this, such as using light pressure from the sun to sail, and Lorenz force momentum tethers in the Van Allen Belts, but they're situational. In the absense of a strong local magenetic feild, or close to a star, like our sun, the only option is reaction mass, and therefore, a rocket of some sort.

The Plasma Jetpack won't work in air for a number of reasons. The main one is that plasma streams must be pure, much like the frequencies in a LASER. That's kind of hard to do in an atmosphere with so many different molecules mixed in. Some will reinforce the ionization of your plasma, some will cancel it, and depending on the weather, this will be rather random.

_________________"You can't have everything, where would you put it?" -Steven Wright.